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Ep 94: Soviet Union (Part 5)

  • Matt Crumpton
  • 7 hours ago
  • 9 min read

Last Fall, Representative Anna Paulina-Luna obtained a copy of newly released Soviet documents related to the assassination of President Kennedy. In this episode, as we wrap up the series looking at the Soviet Union as a potential culprit, we’ll analyze the origin and reliability of this Russian document.

 

What does it tell us about the Soviet Security Services’ relationship with Lee Harvey Oswald? And, more generally, what are the key takeaways from this document that impact the study of the JFK Assassination today?

 

Release of Soviet Documents Generally

 

Last year, on May 20th, during the second hearing of the Task Force on the Declassification of Government Secrets, Judge John Tunheim, the former chairman of the Assassination Records Review Board, told the committee that the ARRB QUOTE “tried to obtain the entire KGB file on Lee Harvey Oswald that is maintained in Minsk.” Ultimately, the ARRB was not successful in getting those documents, which Tunheim was told, stood about five feet tall. Congresswoman Luna told Judge Tunheim that she would follow up on those files and see if she could come up with the documents that the ARRB weren’t able to get.[1]

 

On October 14, the Russian Ambassador provided Congresswoman Luna with a hard copy report (written in Russian) of a new document about the JFK Assassination. Shortly after that, Luna gave the document to JFK researcher and author, Jefferson Morley, who made it available for the public for free on his website, JFKfacts.org. Much of today’s podcast comes from Morley’s reporting on the document. Since I don’t speak Russian, it was very helpful to have some of the key sections translated. We have Morley to thank for those translations. The document is now available in the National Archives.[2]

 

Ok, so what are we talking about here? What exactly is this document? It is 350 looseleaf pages written in Russian, mostly memos and other records, that originated between 1959 to 1964. It was prepared under the supervision of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service. However, this is not the document that Judge Tunheim referenced which was related to the KGB’s Oswald records. This new compendium also has no reference to the KGB report that concluded that Lyndon Johnson was behind the assassination, which was summarized by the FBI in 1966.[3]

 

We talked about what the document is not. Let’s get into what it is. These pages are a collection of documents which highlight cooperation between the United States and the Soviets during JFK’s presidency and during the Warren Commission investigation.[4] While many of these pages are not new, there are a few that are being seen for the first time.

 

Why Now? 

 

Given that it has been more than 60 years since the Kennedy Assassination, what reason could the Russians have for providing the document to Congresswoman Luna now? What’s the context in which we should be viewing this handoff of information between geopolitical foes?

 

On October 16, 2025, President Donald Trump announced that he would be meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Budapest in two weeks to discuss the war in Ukraine. According to experts on Russia, like Mark Medish, the timing of Congresswoman Luna receiving the documents just two days before Trump’s announcement, indicates that the document release may have been a gesture of goodwill to remind American diplomats that the Russians and Americans have negotiated in good faith before, during the Kennedy Administration, and can do it again now. This is consistent with the coverage the document release garnered in Moscow.[5]

 

An obvious challenge to believing that the documents are true and accurate is that they come from the currentRussian government during a time when the United States is backing Ukraine against Russia. It seems silly to take what your military enemy is saying at face value. But, it seems most likely that the Russians were merely hoping to get some goodwill for the Ukraine negotiations by sharing the documents.

 

It’s always a good idea to approach unknown intentions with skepticism. So, we should not blindly trust this document. But, we should also not blindly reject it.[6]

 

The Actual Document

 

The 350 pages lead off with a newly written essay from the head of the Russian archives, Andrei Artizov, who says QUOTE “The question of the USSR’s involvement in the assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy has been definitively closed.”[7]

 

The introductory statement by Artizov notes that Russian Ambassador to the US, Anatoly Dobrynin, met with the chief of the KGB, Vladimir Semichastny, days after the assassination and Semichastny confirmed that neither the KGB nor the GRU had any ties to Oswald. Semichastny later told Swedish researcher, Tomas Sniegon, QUOTE “I cannot imagine any Soviet leader taking responsibility for the death of a top American statesman and for the catastrophic consequences that the revelation of such a connection would have meant for us and the entire world. And what would we have achieved by doing so? Nothing, except the very fact of the dirty elimination of a politician with whom, unlike others, it was possible to negotiate – a man whom, although we fought with propaganda methods, we simultaneously valued and respected more than his rivals.”[8]

 

Artizov also notes in his essay that Chairman Khrushchev personally suspected a conspiracy. In May of 1964, Khrushchev told American journalist, Drew Pearson, QUOTE “This crime is too complex for Lee Oswald’s mind. A whole group of people acted here according to a pre-planned scheme. One person could not commit such a crime. Behind the entire crime are people who had great resources – both material and financial. They are the ones confusing the investigation. It is no coincidence that the assassination took place in Dallas. Kennedy essentially became the victim of his enemies.”[9] 

 

Key Revelations

 

So, what are the key revelations in these new documents? Here are the ones that stuck out to me.

 

We now have a behind the scenes view of the decision of the Supreme Soviet to allow Oswald to stay in the Soviet Union in 1959. A letter from Anastas Mikoyan, the Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers, said QUOTE “Considering that some foreigners previously admitted into Soviet citizenship having lived for some time in the USSR, eventually left the country, and also taking into account that Oswald has not yet been fully studied, it would be advisable to grant him the right of temporary residence in the USSR for a period of one year, with employment and housing provided. After this period, the issue of Oswald’s permanent residence in the Soviet Union and his admission to Soviet citizenship could be reconsidered.”[10]

 

Other interesting documents include the November 29, 1963 report from the Soviet Embassy in Washington back to Moscow, which laid out all of the evidence against Oswald at that time, and all of the evidence supporting Oswald’s innocence, as well as a December 3rd letter from Ambassador Dobrynin to Moscow about his talk with New York Times correspondent, Scotty Reston. During that conversation, Reston told him that, in private talks with American officials, they were saying that Castro or maybe even the Chinese were involved.[11]

 

Another anecdote comes from a memo from the Soviet representative to the United Nations, Nikolai Fedorenko, which recalls Fedorenko’s discussion with Warren Commissioner, John McCloy. On June 24, 1964, McCloy and Fedorenko were at a dinner party and struck up a conversation about the Kennedy Assassination and the work McCloy was doing on the Commission. McCloy said, QUOTE “any assertion of conspiracy surrounding the assassination of Kennedy is not supported by the facts.” Then, McCloy, added, QUOTE “If we were to uncover the killer’s connections to any hidden forces, I weigh my words carefully, the threads could lead beyond the borders of the United States, especially since, as is known, Oswald lived for a time in the USSR, from where he returned with a Russian wife and behaved in a very suspicious manner.”[12]

 

This quote from McCloy captured in a contemporaneous memo further supports the idea that President Johnson was telling all of the Warren Commissioners – not just Earl Warren and Richard Russell - about a potential nuclear war with the Soviets if they followed all leads related to conspiracy. It sounds like McCloy was fishing for confirmation of potential Soviet involvement from Fedorenko. McCloy then backpeddaled and, once again, reiterated to Fedorenko that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.

 

The Dear Mr. Hunt Letter, Solved

 

Remember the “Dear Mr. Hunt Letter” that was allegedly from Oswald? We talked about it in Episode 56. This letter, which three handwriting experts confirmed matched Oswald’s writing, was sent to three JFK Assassination researchers and postmarked from Mexico City. The question has always been, “if we know it was Oswald’s handwriting, then which Mr. Hunt was Oswald talking about? E. Howard Hunt of the CIA, or Texas Oil Tycoon, H.L. Hunt?

 

The Dear Mr. Hunt riddle has now been definitively solved by a key piece of the puzzle provided by the Russians in this new document release. That puzzle piece is a letter written by Oswald to the American Embassy in Moscow in December of 1960. Oswald referenced the letter when writing to the Embassy, but the American Embassy wrote him back in February of 1961 saying that they never received his December 1960 letter. Well, it turns out that the KGB intercepted that December 1960 letter from Oswald and never put it back in the mail. We know that because they turned over a copy of the December 1960 letter with these documents.[13]

 

And, here’s the kicker, the December 1960 letter that Oswald wrote contains identical words and handwriting to the Dear Mr. Hunt letter from Oswald. The entire Dear Mr. Hunt letter was taken from Oswald’s December 1960 letter![14]  When you look at each document side by side, it is unmistakable.

 

We can now say for sure that the Dear Mr. Hunt letter was a provocation from the KGB. They made a phony letter by piecing together Oswald’s actual handwriting and sending it to conspiracy oriented researchers. But, as the CIA itself noted, the critical research community that didn’t dismiss the letter outright tended to assume it was referencing HL Hunt instead of E. Howard Hunt, who was the apparent intended target of the KGB.[15]

 

Bolshakov

 

Another important document that has been provided is a memo from Georgi Bolshakov about his post-assassination meeting with William Walton, a close friend of President Kennedy’s and the Commissioner of Fine Art for Washington, D.C.. Walton was in Moscow on a trip to study Soviet Art, which had been scheduled before the assassination. When Walton met with Bolshakov on December 9, 1963, he carried with him a personal message of gratitude from Jackie Kennedy to Chairman Khruschev. He also shared with Bolshakov an important message that Bobby Kennedy had asked him to relay.

 

Walton said QUOTE “Robert Kennedy asked me to convey you his warm greetings. He said, ‘Go to Moscow and tell them that we, for our part, will do everything possible to ensure that the political course of the United States toward the USSR remains unchanged and that the country’s leadership remains in firm hands.”[16]Walton said that Bobby Kennedy would try to run for governor of Massachusetts first, and would then run for President.

 

According to Bolshakov’s memo, Walton, who, remember, was acting as the personal emissary of Robert Kennedy and Jackie Kennedy, also told Bolshakov, QUOTE “the assassination of President Kennedy was undoubtedly the result of a large political conspiracy. Perhaps there was one assassin, but there were certainly more accomplices to the president’s murder.”[17] This echoed what Bobby Kennedy had previously warned Bolshakov about in 1962: that in a gust of blind hate, the President’s enemies would go to any length, including killing him.[18]

 

Trousdale Letter

 

I want to talk about one more related document that I recently became aware of while perusing the JFK Facts website. It’s a diary from a man named Bill Trousdale, who passed away in 2025. When he died, Trousdale’s caregiver shared his diaries with Morley, who published a story on them. His diary entry is a small data point that tells an important story.

 

Trousdale was once a Ph.D student who had studied the archaeology of southwest Afghanistan. That trip brought him into contact with Lee Harvey Oswald. In October of 1959, Trousdale traveled from the US to Afghanistan, through the Soviet Union. His travels brought him to Helsinki, Finland, where he caught a train to Moscow. On October 15th, 1959, Trousdale wrote in his diary QUOTE “shared large comfortable compartment with Lee Oswald, a young Texan just out of the Marines on [the] way to study philosophy in Switzerland via Russia for five days.”[19]

 

Trousdale forgot all about meeting Oswald on the train. The president’s assassination apparently did not jog his memory. But, when Trousdale reviewed his diary in the 1980s, he realized that he was with Lee Oswald on that Russian train ride. In 2023, Finnish intelligence agency, Supo, declassified the passenger manifest from the train, confirming that both Lee Oswald and Bill Trousdale were, in fact, on that train.[20]

 

What matters here is that Oswald told Trousdale that he was just going to the Soviet Union to visit, and that his real plan was to go to a Swiss university – which was almost certainly Albert Schweitzer College, where Oswald had applied and sent a deposit. Trousdale’s diary further confirms that Oswald was using the tiny Swiss college as a cover for his travel in the Soviet Union.

 

We talked about Albert Schweitzer College in episode 33 if you want to go back and listen.[21] In that episode, we covered the ties of Albert Schweitzer College’s chief fundraiser, Percival Brundage, to American intelligence agencies, including the CIA and Southern Air Transport. With Trousdale’s diary, we have Oswald once again lying about going to this Swiss college, which, to me, looks an awful lot like he has a cover story that he is trying to maintain.

 

NEXT TIME ON SOLVING JFK: We are joined by JFK Assassination researcher and author, Larry Hancock, to talk through the allegations that the Soviet Union was behind the assassination of President Kennedy.

 


[18] David Talbot, Brothers, at 32.

[20] Id.

 
 
 

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© 2025 by Matt Crumpton

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